Assistant Buyer

The Assistant Buyer supports the Buyer with merchandise selection, pricing, and business analysis with the goal of meeting or exceeding sales, margin and turn targets. An Assistant Buyer schedules and tracks purchase orders and works cross-functionally to resolve delivery issues accordingly. An Assistant Buyer partners with Assistant Planners to analyze business trends. Key Roles and Responsibilities

• Support Buyer in building out the assortment and buy plans

• Assist with assortment decisions for visual initiatives (vignettes, endcaps, feature tables, etc.)

• Item management support (case-pack, cube, extended attributes)

• Create and input purchase orders into system; manage purchase order log

• Input/track orders and resolve delivery issues through cross-functional communication with direct sourcing, vendors, distribution centers

• Assist Buyer with Company and vendor meeting preparation

• Facilitates vendor set-up

• Understands and clearly communicate to vendor partners the guidelines of the ticketing and domestic/import shipping manuals

• Serves as point person for marketing content & submissions; review/proof advertising layouts for design, content and pricing and communicate with marketing department

• Collaborate with Assistant Planner on replenishment/reorder analysis

• Provide ad hoc analysis (post-mortem, SKU/category productivity, etc.) and summarize findings to support assortment planning, merchandise financial planning and/or allocation strategy development

• Comp shop and recap results for the buying/planning team

• Support buyer in identifying business opportunities and/or risks in the assortment

• Promote teamwork within the Merchant Team through daily communication, interaction and sharing of best practices with peers

• Manage visual initiatives including tables, vignettes & endcaps

Qualifications and Competencies

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience required

• 1-2 years prior experience in retail

• Demonstrates strong analytical / problem solving skills and is detail oriented

• Demonstrates strong listening, written and oral communication skills

• Exhibits strong trend and pattern recognition skills

• Is flexible and adaptable to changing priorities

• Builds and maintains productive relationships with peers and cross-functional teams

• Possesses a clear understanding of the target customer, supplier base and competitors

• Able to work in fast paced environment, multi-task, organize and prioritize workload to meet deadlines

• Creates all necessary analysis based on trends and reviews

• Demonstrates initiative in exposing and resolving issues and opportunities

• Communicates effectively at all levels internally and with vendors